I laughed and told her I was glad to hear it.
“Tut, tut!” said the old man. “Don’t stand idly chattering here when there’s a first-rate supper spread out for you down below. Away you go. I must have a word with the captain, for we are off to Nagasaki within ten minutes, so I shall bid you both good-night.”
I took it very kindly of the old gentleman to leave us thus alone, and I have no doubt he thought of his own younger days when he did so. I wickedly pretended a greater weakness than I actually felt, and so Miss Stretton kindly supported me with her arm, and thus we went down the stairway together, where, as the old gentleman had said, I found one of the most delicious cold collations I had ever encountered, flanked by a bottle of his very finest champagne. I persuaded Miss Stretton to sit down opposite me, which, after some demur about the lateness of the hour, she consented to do, for I told her my right arm was absolutely helpless, and the left almost equally awkward.
“So,” I said, “you must prove yourself a ministering angel now.”
“Ah, that,” she said, “is when pain and anguish wring the brow. As I understand it, pain and anguish wring the arm. Please tell me how it happened.”
Under the deft manipulation of the Japanese boy, the champagne cork came out with a pop, and, as if it were a signal-gun, there immediately followed the rattle of the anchor-chain coming up, and almost before my story was begun, we heard the steady throb-throb of the engine, and it sent a vibration of thankfulness through my aching frame.
“You do look haggard and worn,” she said; “and I think I must insist on regarding you rather in the light of a hero.”
“Oh, there was nothing heroic in flinging cheap cash about in the reckless way I did. I was never in any real danger.”
“I think we have all been in danger, more or less, since we entered those Palace gates. Although I said nothing I could see from your face what you were thinking.”
“Yes, I know of old your uncanny proclivities in mind-reading. Now that every pulsation of the engine is carrying us farther away from that plague-spot of earth, there is no harm in saying that I spent some days and nights of deep anxiety, and that, I assure you, not on my own account.”